With Sitting Bull at the Spirit Lake Massacre (1927)

A long-thought-lost film finally surfaces after being unseen for over eight decades. Created and copyrighted by Sunset Productions in 1925 but not released until June 15, 1927, this silent epic features the superior Native American actor Chief Yowlachie (performing here under the name Chief Yowlache) as Sitting Bull. Other fine actors in the cast include the always popular Bryant Washburn and a young Bob Steele, who appears under his real name Bob Bradbury Jr. The story takes place in the 1860s or 1870s near Spirit Lake, Iowa. Settlements of whites are growing in that region but the Sioux Indians also have professed their interest in one such settlement. Chief Sitting Bull surveys the settlement at Spirit Lake from afar and with the advice of the Great Spirit vows to retake the land that belonged to his fathers.